requests – Management for Performance

This Middle Manager is Between a Rock and a Hard Place

November 1, 2017/in Accountability, get results, project management, requests, Understanding conversations /by Laurie Ford

When your Boss is not paying attention to what you need, and you are managing a group of people who want to become a team, what do you do? Claire paved the way.

Productive Communication Works!

July 28, 2017/in Closure conversations, effective communication, get results, requests, the four conversations /by Laurie Ford

A woman who had been waiting for an executive in another department to make a budget decision finally stopped waiting and… communicated productively. Good work, Kelly!

How to Save Time: Make Better Requests to Get Better Promises

April 7, 2017/1 Comment/in Accountability, effective communication, get results, promises, requests /by Laurie Ford

How to get what you want from others? Here’s how to make a more effective request. It takes a bit of practice, but you’ll see the benefits early and they will continue to increase.

When a Team is – And Is Not – a Team

March 15, 2017/in effective communication, promises, requests /by Laurie Ford

We talk a lot about teams, and sometimes send people off bungee jumping as a “team-building exercise”. Sounds like fun. But a team is something that needs thought – and practice – to design and implement. It is simple, but not always easy. Still, when you need a team, it’s worth knowing what works.

What You Want & By When: Managers, Leaders, and Schedules

January 9, 2017/in Accountability, counteroffers, Credibility, leadership, Performance conversations, promises, requests /by Laurie Ford

One manager in a recent MBA class was provoked by a discussion about the importance of using schedules, and offered her opinion on the difference between leaders and managers. “I want to be a leader,” she said, “not a manager. What does scheduling have to do with leadership?” Good question, actually. We were talking about […]

What’s the Source of the “Productivity Deficit”?

August 11, 2016/in Accountability, Performance conversations, promises, requests /by Laurie Ford

The Marketplace newsletter has an answer for a question I hadn’t thought to ask: “Why are workers less productive?” It seems the output produced for each hour of labor worked (aka non-farm business productivity) dropped in the second quarter of 2015. It’s the third quarter in a row with a decline in US labor productivity. Innovations like smartphones and 3D printing […]

That Difficult Client Talk – Part I

July 5, 2016/in effective communication, promises, requests /by Laurie Ford

Dear Reggie, First, the bad news. You’ve been blaming your staff and technical teams for not doing their jobs well, but you have not considered that you might be the problem. So I’m here to tell you that you are breaking almost every rule of good management. I’m telling you because you said to me, […]